Across the hall
by asukane
Summary: They'd been a tightly knit friend-group since they met. Tom, Anna, Lavinia and Evelyn had been living nearby Mary in London since they left University. But when Tom needs a roommate, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed interloper moves in across the hall from Mary and Anna, and their group of five quickly adopts Matthew into the mix.
1. moving in

**A/N:** This was written from a prompt on tumblr: _Matthew moves in across the hall from Mary._ I intend to keep these as relatively short drabbles from the same AU but chapters may be non-linear and may not necessarily lead on from one another.

* * *

Mary groaned, shutting her laptop lid with a sigh and deciding to reply to her boss's email at a later date. She wasn't supposed to be working overtime anyway, she'd be doing him a favour if she even read it before next week.

She flopped back against the back of the couch, listening to the vague blare of London streets that was still audible through the windows and walls of their apartment building.

She looked at the clock and puffed out a long sigh. "Screw it," she mumbled, neatening her hair a little as she stood, "I need a coffee."

She reached for her bag, swiped her keys from the breakfast bar and headed out.

* * *

"Morning Mary," Tom Branson called cheerfully, closing the door to his own apartment and smiling widely, jogging a little to catch up with the girl that lived across the hall. "Going for coffee already?"

Mary gave him a tired smile. "I'm done with working for today. My boss will have to lump it."

"Good for you, mind if I join?"

"Of course not, it'll be nice to have someone to talk to." The two fell in step as they made their way down the stairs of the building. "Anna's still out with her sister, so I've only had Perseus around."

Perseus was the cat; he was not actually Mary and Anna's cat, persay, but he came in to their apartment via the fire escape often, and very rarely spent time elsewhere. After six months of him treating the place like home, the two women had made the executive decision to buy him a bed and add cat food to their weekly shop.

"How's the roommate search going?" Mary asked, curious as to if Tom had found anyone worth considering.

In the time, just over a year now, that Tom Branson had been living oppsite Mary and Anna, he'd had over twenty roommates. He just couldn't seem to tie one down, and he couldn't understand why.

"Actually," he started with a rather upbeat tone, "I had a call a couple of days ago from an old friend who's moving to London soon and needs somewhere to live."

"What's he like?" She asked, offhandedly.

"His name's Matthew, he's a lawyer– just starting out– I went to Cambridge with him, very nice guy. Good fun, had great parties."

"That's good. He sounds a good sight better than Larry anyway."

"Don't remind me," Tom laughed, shaking his head at the unpleasant memories of the worst roommate he'd had yet. "I think he'll fit in well and it'll be great to see him again."

"I hope he's all you've cracked him up to be." Mary commented, shooting him a wry smirk as they pushed in the door to the cafe.

* * *

"Tom! Mary!"

Lavinia waved over her two friends to the booth she'd already occupied.

"Hi Liv," Tom grinned sitting beside her as Mary took the seat opposite.

"What's new?" She asked the pair, clearly glad of the distraction from her work.

"My boss is an arse." Mary said drily.

Lavinia laughed. "Nothing new there then. How about you, Tom?"

"I've found a new roommate." He announced happily. "My friend Matthew from Uni is moving in next week."

"Ooh," Lavinia leaned forward. "Is he hot?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Don't let Evelyn hear you saying that."

"I love Evelyn, of course I do, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy looking if there happens to be another attractive man around." Lavinia reasoned.

Tom shrugged. "I don't know… I suppose he's quite good looking… a lot of girls at Uni seemed to like him."

"Men," Lavinia sighed. "Honestly, I don't understand you. How can you not tell if your friends are hot or not?"

Tom scoffed. "So if I asked you if you thought Mary was good looking?"

Lavinia took a sip of her coffee before she answered. "I'd say good luck getting Mary Crawley, she's wildly sexy and as sharp as a knife."

Mary chuckled, winking at Lavinia.

Tom just grumbled, rolling his eyes as he got up to get himself and Mary a drink.

Anna came in a few minutes later, immediately plonking herself down on the seat beside Mary.

"How's Charley?" Mary asked, eyeing Anna a little suspiciously over her coffee. Supposedly, Anna had spent the night over at Charley, her elder sister's, flat and yet, Mary noticed, she still wore yesterday's jeans and a t-shirt that Mary didn't recognise.

"Oh, she's fine." Anna murmured vaguely, before adding: "God, I need caffeine."

"Late night was it?" Tom smirked.

Anna looked up to see all three pairs of her friends' eyes watching her intently.

"Fine– don't make a big thing of it, but Charley and I went out last night and well… I may have met someone."

"I knew it!" Lavinia cheered. "You smell of sex."

Anna turned a rather bright shade of pink.

"So," Mary prodded Anna's side with her elbow, "Who was he? Was he any good?"

"Hello all!"

The group looked up to greet Evelyn as he came in, dropping in on Lavinia's other side and kissing her cheek sweetly.

"What're we talking about?" He questioned.

"We're quizzing Anna on the guy she slept with last night." Lavinia filled him in.

"Typical!" Evelyn said, "I'm always the last to know when something happens!"

"That's so not true!" Tom countered, "I was the last to know when you and Lavinia got together!"

"That's because you're blokes," Anna told them, as if it were obvious. "Women talk. Men rarely do, at least not about the same things."

"Anyway," Mary brushed off, turning back to Anna. "What was his name?"

"John," Anna answered, a little bashful. "His name's John Bates."

* * *

Tom leapt up from his couch, moving over to the door and opening it curiously.

"Oh, hi Mary."

"You seem surprised," she noted, pushing into his apartment and flopping down onto one of his kitchen chairs. "Who else are you expecting?"

"Matthew's moving in today."

"Oh yeah, the famous Matthew. You might have mentioned him one or twice… a minute… all week." She gave him an exasperated look.

"He's my friend!" Tom raised his hands in surrender. "I just want you all to like him."

Mary rolled her eyes. "Well I suppose I can make my own mind up when he arrives. I'm going to have to hide at yours, Anna has John round. The fifth time this week."

Tom furrowed his eyebrows. "It's Tuesday."

"Mhm," Mary replied.

"Well, good for Anna," Tom grinned, taking the seat opposite Mary.

* * *

"Matthew's just arrived downstairs, I'm gonna go and help him with his things, do you mind lending a hand?" Tom looked up from his phone to Mary, who sat across on his couch watching _Have I Got News For You?_

"Yes of course, I'll just go to the bathroom, then I'll be right down."

Mary followed through into the bathroom, tapping the TV off as Tom left, leaving the apartment door ajar.

When she came out, a few minutes later, she made for the door, intending to venture downstairs to meet the new-bee, but instead coming face to face with a tall, blonde and rather handsome man, carrying a large box in both arms. A large box which he promptly dropped onto his foot upon seeing her.

"Argh!" He cried out in pain and dropped down to collect himself and his things, some of which had rolled out across the floor. Mary watched him for a little while, appreciating his toned arms as his muscles moved and flexed, and the way his jeans complimented his derriere rather perfectly.

Matthew found himself with a rather extraordinary view of her legs, long and smooth and slender, as much of a vision as the rest of her was; utterly beautiful in every sense of the word.

She stooped to help him, offering a tender smile.

"You must be Matthew," she held out her hand between them in greeting. "I'm Mary, Mary Crawley. I'm Tom's friend, I live across the hall."

"Mary _Crawley_?" He repeated incredulously, shaking her hand in somewhat stupor-like surprise. He took in her perfectly poised raised eyebrow at his exclamation and hastened to explain himself.

"It's just, I'm Matthew Crawley." He said, shooting her a charming blue-eyed smile.

Mary felt her heart thump a little, her skin prickling and blood growing hotter.

"You're not related." Came a casual Irish tone from the doorway. "I was so interested, that I actually went to the library and looked through Burke's Peerage and Burke's Landed Gentry. Matthew isn't in it and neither are any of his ancestors." Tom explained.

" _You_ borrowed books on Peers and Gentry?" Mary laughed, astonished that Tom, with all his politics and principals, would even do such a thing.

"I know," he rubbed his forehead. "I got a very odd look from the librarian I assure you."

"Why did you need to look through books on the aristocracy?" Matthew asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Ah!" Tom said, with a little mocking in his voice. "My friend clearly didn't introduce herself properly." He made his way over to Mary. "Matthew, this is Lady Mary Crawley, the daughter of the Earl of Grantham. Lady Mary, this is my mate Matthew."

Matthew wore an expression of mingled surprise and amazement.

Mary simply rolled her eyes. "I don't require you to call me by my title, Mr Branson. But if you continue to vex me so, I may insist upon it."

"Say that again," Matthew teased, "But a little more primly."

Mary gave him a look, glaring daggers at Tom who snickered along with Matthew at the joke.

"Forgive my joke, Lady Mary. I shouldn't like to start on the wrong foot." Matthew amended, his eyes practically glowing in their brightness.

"You best be careful then, Mr Crawley." She quipped, swaying her hips deliberately as she passed him and strode through the door, on her way downstairs to help with his things. Before she left however, she turned, shot him a wink and went on her way, her dark hair flowing out behind her.

* * *

 **A/N:** feel free to leave a prompt on here or on tumblr- asukaneus. Thanks for reading!


	2. prickly

"What's up with porcupine?" Lavinia asked, joining the others at the breakfast table, motioning to Mary who wore a rather grim and tiresome expression, speaking wearily into her phone in the corner of the kitchen.

"She hasn't had sex in over two months," Tom said casually, his voice a little gruff as he crunched his cheerios. This earned him a swat over the head with the morning newspaper from Mary as she passed. "What? It's true!" He objected in-between spoonful's.

The others chuckled discreetly into their respective breakfasts as Mary glared daggers at them all.

She hung up the call. "I'm glad that my private life is such a source of amusement to you all." She said stiffly, re-joining the table and looking at her breakfast with little appetite.

Anna looked at her phone. "Mabel says she can come for curry night tonight."

"Oh, just what I needed!" Mary exclaimed sarcastically. "Mabel flirting with everyone in the near vicinity in between prolonged gushing over how wonderful her new relationship with Tony is."

"Tony is Mary's ex," Evelyn clarified to Matthew.

"Ah," he said, a little warily. "And your friend is dating him?"

"Well, hang on a minute," Tom interrupted, scolding Matthew's sympathetic tone. "Mary dumped him."

"She had her reasons," Lavinia said defensively. "But you really do need to get over this vendetta you have against Mabel, Mary. She's perfectly nice, you two just like to compete with each other."

"Mary, you need to eat something," Matthew prompted, noticing she'd barely touched her food. "Or else you'll be too fatigued to spar with Mabel later."

* * *

"Tom?" Matthew turned to his friend from the couch, looking on as Tom perused the contents of the fridge.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it would be alright if I asked Mary out?"

Tom shut the fridge.

The more Matthew had thought about the matter, the more it had seemed like a good idea. He liked Mary. Quite a lot. In fact, he'd found, since he'd moved in, that the majority of his thoughts were made up solely of her and, for a long time now, he wondered if it wouldn't just be worth biting the bullet and putting himself out there. Because if the result ended in a date with Mary, it would be entirely worth the momentary nervousness and sick-feeling in the pit of his stomach that always came between asking someone out and the gravity of the inevitable reply.

"I'm not too sure that's such a great idea, mate." Tom admitted, wincing a little even as he said the words.

"Why not?" Matthew seemed genuinely abashed and disappointed, as if he'd been hoping for an answer in the opposite effect.

"Well, Mary's different." Tom said, with a slight difficulty in finding his words. "She pretends she isn't, of course, but she's really quite Sensitive. Complicated. I don't want to see her lose another friend if it doesn't work out."

The truth of the matter was that Mary had become akin to a sister to Tom, and he'd seen her hurt too many times to be keen to risk it again. Previous friendships that had evolved into relationships had only ended in difficulty and eventually it had become too hard to even maintain the ruse of being civil to one another. It wasn't that he thought Matthew would do the same, not at all, but living in such close proximity with such a close group of friends would only end in everyone having to choose if the relationship came to a head.

"I'm sorry, mate. I just don't think it's such a good plan, is all."

Matthew nodded. "No, no, I get it. I don't to put anyone in an awkward position." Especially not Mary.

Perhaps he'd just have to put his feelings for her to one side.

* * *

"So, it seems Mary's got her eye on someone." Anna teased from behind her book.

"Have I?" Mary asked, looking up from a couple of case files she'd been perusing. "I wasn't aware. Do enlighten me."

"Oh, come on Mary, it's obvious!" Lavinia laughed, coming into the living room and seating herself on the arm of the couch.

"Not that obvious, clearly," Mary argued, "Or I'd know what on earth you were referring to."

"Oh, you know," Anna said slowly, "just the same guy you're always giggling privately with in the corner, going for coffee with after work…"

"…falling asleep on during movie night," Lavinia continued.

Mary felt her face flush, betraying her as their comments persisted with further evidence of her affection. It wasn't entirely fair to blame her for dozing off in Matthew's lap; the movie in question had been some boring old two-hour tale about a character she could barely remember the name of and she'd been shattered after a long day of work on a particularly difficult case and Matthew's shoulder had just been there. It wasn't her fault he was comfortable. It certainly wasn't her fault that, due to lack of space on the couch, she'd been shuffled over so she ended up curled against his chest. And it absolutely wasn't her fault that she'd stayed there, unaware that Anna had decided they should all watch a second film.

"And…"

"For the last time," Mary insisted, interrupting the girls' long list of supposed evidence. "There is nothing going on between Matthew and I!"

There was a short silence.

"That's funny…" Anna mused. "No one even mentioned a name."

Mary's face turned nearly fuchsia.

Lavinia and Anna made no attempts to stifle their giggles.

* * *

"Ooh, you've got a new one in the group," Mabel all but purred at Matthew, coming to stand close before him with a very obvious flirtatious smile

Mary threw a sofa cushion at her, smirking to herself as Mabel's drink sloshed over her arm at the impact.

"Oh, I do apologise," Mary said profusely, guiding Mabel from Matthew and over to the sink, "I was aiming for Tom."

"Oi!" Tom protested indignantly. "If that's how you want to treat me, I'll order you a fish curry and hide your naan."

Mary wrinkled her nose, deliberately ignoring Anna's attempts to catch her eye as she took Mabel's previously occupied space by Matthew.

* * *

"So, what bought you to London, Matthew?" Mabel asked, her hand laying over his arm. "Where are you from again?"

"Manchester," he said quickly, bringing his arm away from her touch through the pretence of reaching for more rice. "I was training in a firm over there after Uni, but when my girlfriend and I broke up, I thought I'd go for a transfer over here."

"Ooh, cross country move to escape a girl," Mabel said with a little relish. "That must have been bad."

"It wasn't the best time of my life, no." Matthew confirmed.

"Well, I can safely say, we're glad to have you, whatever the circumstances that drove you here." Evelyn put in.

"Here, here!" Tom called

Mary shot him a gentle smile, her stomach doing that irritating fluttery-flipping thing when he winked back, grinning widely.

* * *

They all talked while they ate, nicking each other's food and squabbling happily over the last poppadum.

Evelyn told them all how he'd accidentally almost blown up a class of thirty children when he'd been made to cover a chemistry lesson at the secondary school. Lavinia lamented on her waitressing days to pay her rent at university ("Most people just thought I was a slutty waitress." "You were a slutty waitress."). Anna told them all of some really horrendous tales from her medical training and Tom spoke of his plans to spend next Christmas back in Ireland.

When they'd finished, everyone having eaten a little on the side of too much, Matthew and Mary drew the short straws to do the washing up while the others settled themselves down in the living room, well-fed and drowsy, continuing with pointless chat as they lazed about the various chairs.

"You didn't tell me you moved to London to escape an ex," Mary said quietly, taking up a tea towel and picking a plate to dry.

"You're one to talk, porcupine," Tom accused, only just having overheard Mary as he passed through the apartment bearing several cans of beer.

"You didn't tell me why you were nicknamed porcupine." Matthew countered, turning to her with soft blue eyes as she looked straight back into them.

"They say I can be prickly," Mary admitted. "I can't remember whose idea it was now."

"And are you?" He asked, a little teasingly.

"Prickly? Probably."

"On the outside, maybe." Matthew said. "On the inside? I don't think so. Not really."


End file.
